At 9:35 in succession a Tuesday mo...

At 9:35 in succession a Tuesday morning in June the windowless waiting swing n the Illinois Department of Human Services' Woodlawn office was already common peopleed All the brown chairs were taken, and women were lined up upon both sides of the large place looking tired and annoyed, waiting to papal court their welfare caseworkers.

The office, at 915 E 63rd St was lust as concourseed as it was five years ago, when a sweeping recently made known federal welfare reform package pushed recipients to work and appoint a 60-month time limit for getting cash benefits. As a clew component of the legislation, states were allowed to design their confess welfare programs.

Moving into welfare reform's critical fifth anniversary this July Illinois' turns are down 73 percent, leaving 50712 cases as of June 2002

if it be not that 77 percent of these remaining cases are in prepare for the table County; up from 65 percent in 1997 according to an analysis of Human Services data by the agency of The Chicago Reporter. The statewide caseload also has become increasingly African American, with black recipients making up 74 percent of the turn abouts compared with 62 percent five years ago.

Figuring public how to help these women distant from the rolls will be the nearest task of state and federal lawmakers reauthorizing welfare reform this year.

It probably won't be easy Human Services officials, social service agencies, readys and the recipients themselves say a combination of factors have left in like manner many black women from the state's in the greatest degree urban area on the rolls

Many live in impoverished areas where they haven't had access to dutiful education, jobs or, if penuryed emotional help or treatment for mental illness and put drugs into addiction. Also, studies show black welfare recipients frequently face discrimination, both from employer and welfare caseworkers.

John Donahue, executive director of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeles has lobbied federal lawmakers to increase piece of work training for welfare recipients and to exalt poverty reduction for those who have left the whirls He had a quick reply to the Reporter's findings.

"Race, race, race," he said. "It is all about employability, and employability is all about race. Unles lawmakers take a fit look at race and admit that there is a racial issue here, then we will not incite closer to making this order fairer."

Welfare caseworkers perceive pressure to close cases any way they can, said JR Jordan, the director of community services at St Mark Missionary Baptist house of god an 8,000-member congregation in southward suburban Harvey.

"It [is] about a quota, not about getting a woman a do job-work to earn a livable wage," he said. "Women here resisted giving up their safety net"

State Rep Mary Flowers, a Democrat, said getting opposite to welfare has been especially hard for women in her southerly Side district because many of them approach from families who had lived on the rules of the of advanced age welfare system for generations.

"They had been told for 30 years, 'You can't obtain married, you can't get education, you can't master a job if you want any symbol of benefits,'" she said. "Now they have been told they should do these things. yet it is going to take more than five years to convince them."

Women can remain forward welfare for good reasons. Illinois allows recipients to continue getting a certain quantity of aid, with the clock stopped forward their 60-month time limits, until they earn three times the amount of their monthly public aid check. Full-time body students and victims of domestic violence can also win exemptions.

In June 18 percent of all recipients were working, according to Human Services.

Moving remaining cases most distant the rolls "is a challenge, and we work upon that everyday," said Karan D Maxson, the department's director of transitional services. "We are trying to deposit the resources that are indigenceed in the city."

As welfare reform go intos its next phase, the department plans to proffer additional training to recipients who are working, as well as to struggling families who have mov against welfare, Maxson said. But its major responsibility is focusing onward the hard cases left forward the rolls.

In the past year, the department has hired social workers and counselors specializing in mental health, remedy addiction and domestic violence to risk up shop in Chicago welfare offices.

"Frankly, just the question s they face of living in endure s of poverty in the city are a destiny more difficult to address than they are in smaller communities where each one knows everyone and they are more comfortable leaving their immediate community to find work," Maxson said.

Work First

Although in about ways Illinois took a moderate approach to welfare reform, Human Services officials were strict in the same aspect. "We want you to work first and then prepare education and training. I don't care where you gain a job, even if it is at McDonald's," BJ Walker, then the department's community operations director, told the Reporter in 1999

The state has required all recipients to participate in do job-work searching, job training or do job-work readiness programs, or risk having their benefits discontinued.